Gigabit passive optical network (GPON) is a communications access architecture recently developed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Study Group 15 and published as standards ITU-T G.984.1 through ITU-T G.984.4.
This standard provides the flexibility for network elements in a GPON network to dynamically assign timeslots in frames during an active communications session. Reassignment of timeslots, however, can cause jitter and latency which in turn can cause undesirable interruptions and/or inoperability of a communication session involving constant bit rate (CBR) data traffic such as voice and or video. Additionally, CBR data traffic can be significantly interrupted during an Operations, Administrative and Management (OAM) cycle which utilizes up to two consecutive frames.
A need therefore arises for a method and apparatus for transporting deterministic traffic in a GPON network.